The Mum Hunt

by Gwyneth Rees

  ‘All the grown-ups get to have cocktails and stuff!’ I told Juliette. ‘Dad likes going really!’

  ‘Well . . .’ Juliette smiled. ‘It is true that I would be interested to meet Holly’s mother.’

  ‘Ay, yes, Holly’s mother!’ Dad said, letting out a snort. ‘Though don’t expect too many pearls of wisdom today, Juliette. After all, it is a barbecue and I guess she’ll be pretty busy cooking up sausages.’

  I went to jab him in the stomach because I’m fed up with the way he always makes fun of Holly’s mum. He went to grab me back until Juliette started fussing that if we didn’t stop mucking about, I’d crease my new dress. As Juliette started muttering in French, tugging at my dress and straightening out the waistband, Dad grinned at her. ‘Would you like a hanky to spit on, so you can scrub her face as well?’ he asked.

  ‘Shut up, Dad!’ I said, glaring at him. But I wasn’t really annoyed. I was too busy looking forward to Holly’s party.

  Everyone at Holly’s party really liked my dress. Holly was wearing her birthday present from her father, which was clingy and fell straight down to her calves and was made of this red scrunchy material that looked like silk. It did look sophisticated but in a totally weird sort of way. Holly’s mum kept telling her it was going to be all the rage in a few months’ time, but even she couldn’t resist adding, ‘For five minutes on a catwalk somewhere at any rate.’

  Fortunately Holly isn’t a self-conscious sort of a person or she’d never have coped with all the looks and comments she was getting about it.

  ‘Is your dad here?’ I asked, looking around.

  She shook her head. ‘He couldn’t make it. He’s in Paris. He’s going to take me there next year for my birthday. To celebrate me becoming a teenager!’

  ‘Well don’t let him talk to my dad, then. Dad thinks people should declare a state of emergency when there’s a teenager in their household.’

  ‘Is he still fighting all the time with Matthew?’ Holly asked.

  I nodded. ‘Matthew’s being a real pain at the moment.’ I was about to fill her in on the details when some other guests arrived and she had to go and greet them. Lots of Holly’s friends arrived with their mums and some of them had brought their dads too. I watched Holly lean against her mum who had both arms draped round Holly’s shoulders. When I was younger I used to like pretending that Holly and I were sisters and that her mum was my mother too.

  I hardly got to see Holly on her own for the rest of the day. Halfway through all the party games and toasting of marshmallows my dad phoned to say he wasn’t going to be able to make it after all. I suddenly got into this funny mood. I get these moods sometimes. They just sort of creep up on me and it’s like this big balloon inside me has suddenly popped and all the fun I’ve just been having suddenly seems to vanish. And I feel so bored and empty inside that I can’t imagine getting any fun out of doing anything ever again.

  I sat down on the grass and thought about how Juliette probably wasn’t going to come to the party either. She was probably so busy shopping that she’d only realize she’d left it too late when the shops closed.

  ‘Esmie, are you OK?’

  I looked up. Holly’s mum was standing over me with a banana wrapped in tinfoil in her hand. ‘Want one of these?’

  I shook my head.

  She squatted down beside me on the grass and said, ‘Would a hug help?’

  I nodded. Holly’s mum is great for hugs when I need cheering up and she never asks questions. Holly says she doesn’t mind sharing her mum with me sometimes and I guess that’s sort of what happens. She couldn’t sit with me for very long today, though, because she had to go and see to her other guests too.

  I was still sitting on my own ten minutes later, when I spotted Holly’s mother speaking to a slim blonde woman who had her back to me. She was dressed in a shimmery blue dress and even from the back she looked stunning. The woman turned and I saw that it was Juliette. I couldn’t believe it! She looked so different all dressed up like that! She waved and started towards me with a hot dog in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

  ‘Why are you sitting here on your own?’ she asked, kicking off her shoes and carefully lowering herself down to sit beside me on the grass. ‘I hope you haven’t eaten too much. I hope you are not going to be sick.’

  ‘I don’t feel sick,’ I said, staring admiringly at her dress.

  ‘Holly’s mother is worried because she thinks you are not enjoying yourself.’ She frowned. ‘Why aren’t you playing with the others? You look like a little old lady sitting here all by yourself!’

  ‘Stop being horrible!’

  ‘I’m not being horrible! I am just caring about you. Anyway, it is very important to laugh at yourself! Otherwise you will end up with grey hair and an ulcer in your stomach from worrying too much. Now listen . . . I have some good news for you!’ She told me that this afternoon, she’d had an idea about our Lonely Hearts Plan. ‘I only thought of it when someone phoned and Matthew answered, and they thought he was your father. I thought, why doesn’t Matthew record a message for the newspaper? He can pretend to be your father and no one will know the difference! So I asked him and he has already done it for us!’

  I couldn’t believe it! ‘Juliette, you . . . you traitor!’ I burst out.

  ‘But Esmie, Matthew has helped us! He has recorded a message in a deep voice sounding just like your father! I thought you would be pleased. Now we can put our advert in the paper after all.’

  ‘I don’t care! He’s a stupid, nosy, big-headed, sneaky PIG!’ I shouted. ‘He’s going to spoil everything!’

  ‘Esmie, calm down!’

  But I wouldn’t calm down. I ranted on and on about how our Lonely Hearts Plan was ruined now and how Dad was going to end up totally single until the day he died. And how I was going to have to stay at home and look after him for the rest of my life until I went all ancient and cobwebby like that Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.

  ‘What a catastrophe you make up!’ Juliette interrupted, laughing. ‘You make your life into a big disaster movie, no?’

  ‘Well it might as well be!’ I shouted. ‘Nothing ever goes right for me! It’s not fair!’

  ‘Oh, Esmie . . .’ She made a teasing, mock-sympathy sort of noise. She does that a lot when I get sulky about things, like when I went into a mood because Matty took the last strawberry cream out of the Milk Tray box when he knows they’re my favourite. (It might seem trivial to her, but I love strawberry creams and I know Matty doesn’t really and that he only takes them because they’re the biggest.)

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I said, in a choked voice.

  ‘Of course not! It is such a tragic life you have, I could not hope to!’

  I looked at her sharply. Juliette hadn’t used sarcasm much when she first came but now she was getting pretty good at it.

  ‘Juliette, did you hear what he said in the advert?’ I demanded.

  ‘No. He said he felt embarrassed to have me listening to him.’

  I closed my eyes in horror.

  ‘Esmie, I don’t understand. You think what? That he has said what?’

  I shook my head. Juliette is so amazingly naive about some things. About brothers, for a start. Juliette hasn’t got any so maybe that explains it. ‘You’ll see,’ I said, bluntly, as I stood up to go and join Holly and the others inside the house. ‘You’ll see.’

  And one week later, she did.

  Before that, though, I had to go back to school.

  I managed to avoid Monday by saying I felt sick after Dad had gone to work. Well, I did feel sick. I wasn’t lying. I felt sick at the thought of going to French and facing Miss Murphy after what had happened last time – not to mention Billy Sanderson and his mates. And when Juliette lost her temper and shouted at me that I had to go to school, I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in. It wasn’t my fault if she assumed I’d thrown up in there.

  She felt guilty for shouting at me after that, and inst
ead of making me go to school she phoned our doctor to make another appointment and got told that she was off sick herself.

  ‘There’s a nasty bug about at the moment,’ the receptionist told her down the phone. (She’s got a really loud voice so I got to hear everything she said.) ‘My kids have got it too. Vomiting and diarrhoea like you wouldn’t believe! If I were you I’d keep her at home until she’s a hundred per cent better. You don’t want her infecting all the others, do you?’

  When Dad came home and heard what had happened he pointed out that I hadn’t had diarrhoea – or very much vomiting come to that – and that he thought I should go back to school tomorrow and see how I felt.

  Dad has got no sensitivity at all. I told him I still felt ill, and when I went to the loo he stood outside the bathroom door asking me to describe what was happening.

  ‘Dad, go away! You’re embarrassing me!’ I protested.

  ‘I don’t see why. I was the one who changed your nappies, remember! And got you potty-trained! And wiped your—’

  I flushed the chain so that I couldn’t hear him any more, and went over to the sink. ‘Dad, I’ve gone really pale,’ I told him, frowning at my face in the bathroom mirror.

  ‘How pale?’ He sounded suspicious.

  ‘Dad, this isn’t a murder investigation, OK?’ I snapped, switching on the yellow light above the mirror. I didn’t look pale any more – I looked yellow – and my legs felt wobbly. Maybe I really was coming down with something after all.

  Dad still wasn’t convinced though, and the next day he drove me to school himself. I told him I felt sick but he just handed me a paper bag to carry around with me and promised that he’d take me straight to see his doctor – who wasn’t off sick with a bug – if I ended up not making it through the day.

  But that day and the next I actually didn’t feel too bad. We didn’t have French so I didn’t have to face Miss Murphy. Billy Sanderson and his mates weren’t in any of my other classes and since I spent most of my breaks with Holly, hanging out in the girls’ toilets trying on the make-up she’d got for her birthday, I didn’t have to see them at all.

  ‘You should just ignore them if they say anything,’ Holly said, carefully applying her plum-coloured lipstick to my top lip. ‘I don’t know why you’re getting so upset about it.’

  ‘It’s really embarrassing, that’s why!’ I fumed, moving so that she smudged the lipstick.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ Holly said, blotting my lip with loo roll and starting again.

  Holly doesn’t understand things like that. She never gets embarrassed. Once she came out of the girls’ toilets with her skirt caught in her knickers and everyone laughed, including loads of boys. I think I’d have died if that happened to me, but she just tugged it free and laughed herself. Nobody bothered teasing her for long because they could tell she just didn’t care. Also, she’s got a great memory for embarrassing things that have happened to other people at times like that. In fact, she can get pretty nasty if anyone has a go at her. Holly’s a great friend when she’s on your side but she’s pretty scary if she doesn’t like you. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘What’s happening with your dad? Is Juliette still trying to matchmake?’

  ‘Sort of . . .’ I said. Fortunately, at that moment the bell rang so I didn’t have to tell her any more.

  On Thursdays – which was the next day – we have French in the afternoon, and at lunchtime I started to get this tummy ache and had to go and lie down in the school nurse’s room. She was very sympathetic and sent a note to Miss Murphy explaining that I was too sick to go to French. I felt better by the time the bell rang for us to go home and I didn’t tell Dad about not feeling well. I didn’t give Dad the note the school nurse had given me either, because I knew he’d make a fuss and insist on taking me to the doctor.

  On Friday, I felt fine. We don’t have French on Fridays, and next week was half-term which meant no more school for a whole week! And then, at the end of the afternoon, Miss Murphy sent a message saying she wanted to see me first thing when we got back after the holiday. Suddenly I felt sick all over again.

  ‘It’s nerves,’ Holly said, following me into the toilets after the bell had rung. ‘My mum says people often feel sick when they’re nervous. You should take some deep breaths and think of something nice – that’s what Mum always tells me to do.’

  So I thought about the weekend and the fact that our lonely-hearts advert was going in the paper tomorrow. But I must have been nervous about that too because as soon as I started thinking about it, the sick feeling got ten times worse!

  That afternoon I got home to find Matthew in the living room being interrogated by Dad. Dad must have got home early for once. Straight away I thought he must have found out about our Lonely Hearts Plan but when I stood in the doorway to listen, I realized he had got my brother cornered about something completely different.

  ‘So who were you with at McDonalds?’ Dad sounded very stern.

  ‘Just Jake and some guys he knows,’ Matthew mumbled. He was standing facing me with his back to the fireplace, and I immediately felt like I wanted to rescue him. I don’t know why I felt like that because usually I don’t mind one bit when Matthew gets into trouble. Maybe it was the way his cheeks were all flushed and his fringe was standing on end and he was shuffling from one foot to the other with his hands in his pockets looking about five instead of fifteen.

  ‘You haven’t mentioned these new friends to me before.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been at work all the time lately, haven’t you?’ Matthew said, sulkily. He paused, like he expected Dad to say something. When Dad just kept looking at him the same way, he swallowed and carried on, nervously. ‘Anyway . . . we’ve all been meeting up for breakfast. Jake and me just forgot the time. We didn’t mean to be late for school.’

  ‘Three times in the last week, it says here.’ Dad flapped the letter he was holding in front of Matthew. ‘Forty-five minutes late on one occasion.’

  ‘It’s only registration and stuff. The teachers just faff around at the start of the lessons, anyway,’ Matthew mumbled, spotting me and making a rude get-lost sign at me.

  I instantly got annoyed. ‘My English teacher says that the first twenty minutes of every lesson is the most important because that’s when you’re concentrating your best!’ I said, making a rude sign back.

  Dad turned round at the sound of my voice. ‘I would say Esmie’s English teacher probably knows what she’s talking about, wouldn’t you?’ he said, turning back to set his eyes firmly on my brother.

  Matthew went all red in the face again and mumbled, ‘Yes, Dad,’ and I started wishing I hadn’t opened my mouth. OK, so my brother’s a pain, but it didn’t really make me feel good to see him squirming as much as this. Our dad is pretty fair most of the time but he can come down hard on Matthew when he’s done something really bad – much harder than Jake’s dad ever does on him. I couldn’t see Dad’s face to judge how much danger my brother was really in, but I guess Matty must have thought it was quite a lot because he was hanging his head now like he expected to be grounded for the rest of the year.

  ‘I can’t believe Juliette didn’t tell me about this,’ Dad suddenly said.

  There was silence in the room. I held in my breath. Juliette couldn’t be going to get into trouble about this. It wasn’t fair if Dad blamed it on her.

  ‘It wasn’t Juliette’s fault, Dad,’ my brother said, nervously. ‘She didn’t know I was late for school.’

  Dad didn’t reply for a moment. Then he nodded, slowly, ‘You’re right, Matthew. You’re a big boy and getting to school on time should be your responsibility. Now listen to me . . .’ He pointed a finger at him. ‘I accept that I’ve been spending too much time at work lately, but if you need me to stay at home in order to kick your backside into school for you every morning, then I promise you, I’ll do it. Now, is that what you’re telling me you need?’

  ‘No, Dad,’ Matthew flushed.

  ‘Well, one mor
e late morning and I’ll start delivering you to school myself. Right up to the door of your classroom. In fact, I’ll personally hand you over to your registration teacher. And I don’t want you going to McDonalds every day before school. You can go with Jake once a week and that’s it. Got it?’

  Matty opened his mouth to protest and shut it again quickly. Even he wasn’t stupid enough to start arguing again now. ‘Yes, Dad,’ he said, meekly.

  ‘OK, then.’ Dad put the letter back in its envelope. ‘Now, you’ll be pleased to know I am not working this weekend.’

  ‘Can we go and see a film, then?’ I asked, quickly. ‘There’s a new Star Wars film out, isn’t there, Matty?’

  Matthew stuck out his lower lip, sulkily, even though he’d been going on non-stop about wanting to see it ever since Jake had seen it with his dad last week. ‘Why don’t we all go on Sunday afternoon?’ Dad suggested.

  ‘Great!’ I said.

  Dad looked at my brother. ‘Matthew?’ There was a long silence while Matty deliberately kept Dad waiting for his reply. ‘Matthew?’ Dad said again, not sounding so patient this time.

  ‘I suppose,’ my brother grunted.

  ‘Can Juliette come with us?’ I asked. ‘Please, Dad.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Dad sighed.

  ‘Great!’ I shouted, and I raced off to ask her.

  Usually I really like Friday evenings because I know that I’ve got two whole days of no school ahead and that I’m going to get to see more of Dad because it’s the weekend. But this Friday evening was turning out to be really boring.

  For starters, Juliette announced that she was going out and she wouldn’t be back until late. Then at teatime, Dad asked Matthew if he’d got the marks back for his English test and Matthew yelled, ‘Yes, and I failed it, OK! Shakespeare is just stupid, anyway!’ And he got up and left the table, even though he hadn’t finished his meal. Matthew has his GCSEs next summer and every now and then he gets really panicky about them. He especially gets panicky if he gets bad marks for stuff he’s handed in.